~ Chapter 17: The merc from the slums ~

[Nataly’s point of view]

When you are born and raised in the slums of the Wrecked City or as the people called it after the big Cleanup, Chicago or New Chicago, you get to learn a few tricks to survive even in the harshest conditions.  My mind was forged among the alleys and the wrecks of abandoned buildings and vehicles, among street rats, beggars, and gangsters. This was why when it came for me to make a choice, I didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, disconnecting my Brain Cage from my body before the infection reached my brain.

Doing this would mean to doom my body to almost certain death. It would mean to dispose of the last of my human organs and surrendering myself completely to the cold world of cybernetics. This was a choice most cyborgs wouldn’t even dream of doing. Implants for them were a necessity brought about by life’s circumstances, and this very thing created a mental dependency and attachment to whatever organic parts they had left. Every piece they cut off made them feel less human. Thus, it was impossible for them to decide in a moment’s notice to cut themselves off from their body even if this was their only choice keep on living. This wasn’t the case for me, however, the Wrecked City taught me well that any moment of hesitation in a life and death situation could very easily spell my doom.

My parents weren’t as lucky as me, they died on those streets when the two major gangs that sent Old Chicago on the path of becoming the Wrecked City had a shootout right in the middle of a public square.

They said they were collateral victims, but the police didn’t intervene until one of the two gangs won or at least both retreated. The Nighters and the Kimera, two powerful gangs with access to enough firepower to be considered small armies, yet the proud USA didn’t do anything about them, they watched from the sides like they would some sort of grandiose experiment that was unfolding right before their eyes.

That was why I couldn’t join the army at first. To me, they were the enemy, the wretched bastards who took away my mom and dad!

Years passed, and while I was rising in fame and power on the streets of the Wrecked City, the opportunity came for a street rat like me to join the Mercs, more specifically, the Hungry Lions. I was 32 at the time, and in the eyes of my peers I was still considered a dashing beauty.

My years with the mercs weren’t pretty, I lost many good friends, but after two decades on the battlefields, I decided to retire. I was 52 at the time and Planet 6 seemed like the place to be. I had enough money stored up and the flight there was bumpy to say the least. Never puked like that in my entire life, but that was what you got when you decided to eat like a stubborn oaf right before the flight.

I had another reason to retire, my daughter, Mercuria. She was only two at the time, and I had no idea who the father was. That night I was far too drunk, and the party was far too great to give a damn about it, but my captain certainly did. He was the one who suggested that I should try putting my gun down.

Unfortunately, even though I was the one to lay down my gun, the blasted thing refused to leave my grip. It coiled around me like a snake and stayed there with a god-like stubbornness. Planet 6 entered civil war, and to keep my daughter safe and out of those bastards’ hands, I fought as a mercenary again.

I saw Mercuria grow up to puberty and become a beautiful 14-year-old teenager, yet the moments when she smiled and relaxed were few and spread throughout the years she lived with me. I was a mercenary that was feared on the battlefield, enough for those bastards not to think about touching her, but her friends weren’t so lucky.

Whenever she came home and asked me why her friends had to be sold into slavery or to some greasy old fart, why her teacher got executed for speaking out his mind, or why the others cursed her because of my deeds, it broke my heart. I wanted to do something about this, I wanted to get her out of there and then, like a miracle, a chance arrived when the UPS Navy arrived on the planet and started to make order. The war would continue with them, but I didn’t want to be a part of it.

 Because of my extended track record and recent cybernetic implants, I was given a unique proposition, which was to participate in an experimental program aiming to improve and advanced the military cyborg technology. The cost would be enough money for me and my family to live like kings... and a ticket off Planet 6.

I took the deal... I sacrificed my body, but Mercuria was able to settle down on Earth. She went to High School there, then to a good University. She got a job as an accountant at some company, then she got married and lived her life far away from war and the dark side of the world in which I was submerged up to my neck.

I was happy, and I didn’t regret it for one bit.

My tasks as the Navy’s dog were many and diverse, including some weird ones that required me to dress up as a maid and serve some mogul until I was given the command to assassinate him. My next job was supposed to be on Colony 9, a simple bodyguard for the daughter of a VIP through which I was meant to prove the effectiveness of my implants and thus secure a new possible contractor in the Adamscyon oligarch. In other words, it was a promotional gig.

I didn’t really mind this job, it reminded me of the times I spent together with Mercuria, however, when we went shopping for a special gift for her mother’s birthday, the infected began to appear at the mall. I protected her to the best of my abilities, but somehow, despite my defensive skin, I too became infected.

Back when I was transformed into this military cyborg, I was told that the Brain Cage’s main function wasn’t to preserve my brain in case my body was destroyed but rather to make sure I died in case the enemy captured me. However, it was true that it was equipped with multiple sensors and even all the necessary systems required to keep the brain alive for a certain amount of time.

In an induced coma, I could survive inside my Brain Cage for up to three months, while in active state, I could live for a week at best. The information I received from the outside environment was minimal but enough for me to understand that as soon as I was infected, all the nanobots in my body rushed to my brain, trying to take over it. The data gathered by my sensors showed me those microscopic machines moving around my Brain Cage like chaotic ants with no sense of direction or purpose just the hunger to break me and conquer me.

When I realized that I had no chance of escaping, I decided to simply enter in that induced comma state and wait for either my Brain Cage to be retrieved by someone or my imminent death.

The thing was that I was not a stranger to the various methods of interrogation that were used in this day and age. Torturing the body became a thing of the past, something that very few interrogators still dabbled into, however, the torture of the mind and the dissection of one’s consciousness became the main objective. This was done in many ways, either by creating an advanced simulated world for the person to be submerged in, by using advanced mental reprogramming methods, or through the artificial injections of fake memories that caused the individual to turn sides.

Usually, among all these methods, the idea of being stuck on a post-apocalyptic world with no chance of escaping and limited resources was the thing that cracked most people. Rather than ending up alone for a cause they perceived as having no meaning left, they would rather spill everything in the hope of averting that said loneliness.

When this method didn’t work, you could also apply the ‘Traitor-Hunter’ method, in which you would have your prisoner ending up on the kill list of a fanatic individual who believed it was your fault the whole world went to hell.

Each interrogator preferred certain methods and excelled in only a specific few. Personally, I ended up experiencing some of them. The whole post-apocalyptic scenario was more of a game for me, which I managed to survive in my own way. I didn’t crack that easily, but while this made me think that I was now far older than my dossier actually said, I also gained a remarkable resistance to this type of virtual torture.

Now, why this little thing was so important, well, as a brain stuck in a Brain Cage, the interrogators didn’t really have a body they could torture anymore, so virtual reality was the only choice they would have left. That was why, before anything, I had to make sure that whatever I was seeing and experiencing once I woke up from my induced comma wasn’t actually the projection of a highly advanced Virtual Reality.

There were details and ideas which simply could not be fabricated by a Virtual World. There was also that unique feeling you get when you first stepped into a fabricated world. It was hard to describe, but ever since hyper-realistic virtual reality became a thing, users of all kinds always had the feeling that they were not within the real world. It was as if the very soul of the world was missing, the thing that connected us to our planet and even the entities we worshipped as gods.

Yet, from the moment I opened my eyes again and was able to look at this desolated and destroyed world, I felt as though this was reality.

The man called Kardian Pandora wasn’t someone out of the ordinary, a regular guy, if I were to call him that. He didn’t have the roughness in his voice of a man who went through wars and saw more disturbing things than he could dare to count. His smile was simple, his eyes were relaxed although a bit worried about my own allegiance, his hands were smooth, lacking the callouses of a working class.

He’s a normal man... I thought.

For me, this wasn’t a minus as a man but a plus. Most normal folk shied away from me the moment when they saw my battle scars or heard about some of the shit I went through. They would rather turn tail and run to the hills as fast as they could rather than look back once, let alone think about inviting me out to a coffee.

Heh, maybe that was the reason why Mercuria’s father didn’t even bother to check with me after that one-night stand. I thought.

No doubt he woke up seeing my scarred body and then ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.

Anyway, I wasn’t mad at him. That man, I couldn’t remember him at all, and I didn’t really care that much about him. For me, he was no better than dead.

Then there was my own age... I was considered to be far too old to even think about relationships, but a merc’s life was decided by the second not by the year. It didn’t matter if I was old or if it was frowned upon in society. On the battlefield, I saw even couples who could be grandfathers and granddaughters just by looking at their age difference, but they didn’t give a rat’s ass about, especially since many of them just ended up single or on the MIA list after a mission.

That was the thing, as a merc, you would rather live in the moment rather than the past or the possible future. Retirement usually meant a bullet in the head or an injury so nasty not even cybernetics could fix it. Still, when you end up as a parent and the next thing that you’re worrying about is not whether or not the enemy you’re strangling is going to die soon but whether or not you forgot to feed your baby girl back at the base, that would be your que to get the hell out of there and slam your ass on the retirement seat.

Usually, that would be what you think about, however, when I saw that wrecked city before me, and the massacre down on the streets, I felt as though that seat just turned into an ideal dream now many would just wish it would happen sooner or later.

Can you even retire in this hellhole? I wondered as I looked into the horizon and noticed the many towers of smoke that rose up to the sky with the automatic drones being the only things still flying around.

The impact of this image, the memories it woke up in me, and the way it made me feel, all of these proved to me that this could not be a Virtual Reality designed to pull secrets out of me. It couldn’t be... it simply felt too disgustingly real.

“What exactly happened while... I was asleep?” I asked this man with ruffled brown hair and black eyes who quite literally now held the fate of my life in his hand.

“Well... it’s a long story, but we have time.” he replied as he scratched the back of his head and showed me a wry smile.

“I guess, I never reached the Military Base...” I noted.

“Well, it’s probable that you changed halfway through or maybe the transport was derailed, either way, we found you here, in City 203 and not in City 93. Maybe your employers, the one you were supposed to be a bodyguard of transported you here?” he suggested, but I shook my head.

“No, most likely I was grabbed by the military, restrained and then transported. As a military cyborg, I am designated as a Retrieval Priority Alpha. This means that the army will go through hell and back to get my body back. No, what might have happened is that I crashed in this city... or near it, then somehow, I arrived here.” I told him,

“It is possible that your Nano-Z form followed other Nano-Z to a new hunting ground, the city.” Xerya, the AI, spoke to me by stimulating my eardrum directly. It was an interesting way of communicating, ineffective by a typical AI’s standards, but it also made me feel more connected with her, like I was speaking with a person rather than a machine.

“Either way, it probably happened during the time when the outbreak was at its peak. I was also bitten during that time. Afterwards, Xerya here kind of took over and ensured that I would survive no matter what. As for what happened to the world during that time, the most I know is that society itself fell apart. The Interstellar Communication Station Hub was destroyed, blown to bits. For a while, we were expecting the military ships in the orbit to establish a new communication link with Earth, but instead, they cut off communication completely with us. There were a few messages here and there which claimed that currently Planet 9 might be behind enemy lines and that we were declared as a Quarantined Planet.” he started to explain.

While he talked, I also thought about the things that I knew which weren’t known to the public yet. For the first part, the enemy that mankind was facing was quite powerful and our current tech was on par with theirs, but this was only through sheer luck. They had more advanced cybernetic systems and made implants look as easily to add and remove as clothes. In a 1v1, a human would have a very small chance of survival against them. We simply weren’t built that strong.

Actually, the whole reason why my body went through so many modifications was because I was technically a military prototype designed to face off against those things, the Heavy Unit, if I were to give it a name.

My superiors knew a lot more about this, but being the prototype meant that I went through a lot of ups and downs. I was essentially the test unit before they applied the tech to their elite. The last thing the top brass wanted was to cut off the good arm of a good soldier and replace it with a toaster.

As he continued to tell me about what he saw and experienced in this world since he woke up, it was starting to sound more like a horror movie and less like reality. The destruction of the Interstellar Communication Station Hub felt like the catalyst that changed the very way that people were behaving in both groups and alone. No connection with Earth meant that there was no law to follow. This wouldn’t usually be the case if there was no military or police force on the planet, but considering the situation of this infection, chances were that they were in the same state of survival as the civilians.

“It became the Heaven of the Lawless... worse than Planet 6 during the civil war...” I said as I remembered my years back then as a mercenary.

Even when there were two armies facing each other in the middle of the city, it wasn’t as if you had to fear the chance of a flesh-eating monster jumping out of a window to bite down on your jugular. The worst enemy back then was the bullet pointed at you and the one who wielded the gun. In more special situations, the individual who was commanding them.

“So, the Nano-Z are the infected...” I said as I looked down on the street at those creatures that looked no different than zombies pulled straight out of a horror movie.

“Pretty much... and in theory, we both are.” he scratched the back of his head.

“In theory?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Well, originally, you were infected with the Zombolik Virus and so was I, however, while you turned into... a thing, I was changed into what I am today thanks to Xerya. In a way, if she didn’t become my friend, I would have ended up like any other Nano-Z out there. I don’t know, however, whether or not what I did to reach this point could be replicated by anyone else, from what I was told, chances are abysmal low.” he explained while I continued to look down at the monsters roaming the streets.

“So, I was like them... I probably attacked the soldiers who brought me over for a cure... maybe my plane crashed... It’s a lot to process, but what is your plan now?” I asked him and my body turned to face him.

“Personally, I want to know more about what happened while was sleeping, and I would also want to find out what happened to the rest of the people that I knew before... well this plague happened. You see, I was a teacher at Resonance High. I want to know what became of my students and if any of them managed to survive... Well, I hope they did...” he showed me a worried look as he walked over to the ledge and leaned against the frame.

“Did you have family here?” I asked him.

Turning his head, his lips parted as if wanting to say something but then closed again. He looked sad.

“No... not here. I don’t know if I have any.”

“So, it’s complicated, I understand.” 

“Planet 9 was the land of hope for most of the people who lived on this planet. It was supposed to be a new paradise for us, a chance to start anew and make a name for ourselves or at the very least improve our living conditions that might have been dirt poor back on Earth... or any other colony.” he looked back at me.

“That I can relate to... I too went to Planet 6 back then thinking that I could retire and start anew with my daughter... It was a good plan, at the beginning... but then shit hit the fan and scattered it all over the god damn place. I ended up spending more time with a gun in my hand than by the side of my little girl. It was... unpleasant.” 

“Well, I don’t think this time Planet 9 will be as lucky as Planet 6 was, our Interstellar Communication is down, the army has yet to show any other move than to consolidate their own forces and maybe establish their own restrictive bases... The people of this planet, as far as I read on the net, are with one leg in the graveyard and the other in the mouth of a Nano-Z.” he let out a heavy sigh.

The man sat down on the floor and lowered his head.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to do from now on... I wasn’t trained as a military man, and I know next to nothing about survival...” he then looked at his own hands, they were trembling “I killed those things, but I still feel as though I killed a human being. I don’t know, maybe I’m just weak?” he held his forehead with his palm and then let out another deep sigh.

“Or that you are human...” I told him. “Few are those who feel nothing when taking another’s life and they usually end up becoming the fiercest of criminals. You aren’t like them, so... that’s good in my opinion. Does this make you weak on the battlefield? Well, for now, yes because you could hesitate in a critical moment when you are required to deliver the killing blow. I’m sure that if I turned out to have a suspicious personality, Xerya here would have killed me right away before you got a chance to do it.”

“Affirmative. For now, Nataly passes as a possible ally.” Xerya confirmed although I didn’t know if I should feel happy or conflicted about this. After all, I was hanging by a thread with the knife resting in the hand of an unshackled AI.

At least this day can’t get any worse... I thought to myself.